Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

Think about this. You're out for dinner with some mates, the wine is flowing and the food is amazing. You all agree to split the bill down the middle, but, when you go to pay, it turns out that someone didn't pay their full share of the bill. So now you're left to pick up part of their tab too. You'd be pretty miffed about that, wouldn't you? This is exactly what state and territory governments are doing on education funding. They have failed to stump up the cash to honour the agreement they made in the first place. Now they're crying poor and putting their hand out to the federal government for more money. It's like a bad Oliver Twist joke.

Ten years ago, state and territory governments agreed for public schools to be funded to 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard, or SRS. This is an estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet its students' educational needs, recommended in the Gonski review. The states and territories would fund 75 per cent, and the federal government would top up the 20 per cent that was left. We're 10 years down the track, and several state governments have failed to hold up their end of the bargain.

Now, to be fair, some states have reached their targets or are close—Tassie is one of them—but others are way off. So they've decided to band together to demand more cash from the federal government. They say schools are underfunded, so, naturally, the federal government must be the ones to chip in. The states say they just don't have the cash to put in anymore. But I'm sure if they looked at their coffers a little closer they'd find areas to cut back. Take the Tasmanian Liberal government. It's a bit rich that they say they don't have money for education when they've found a spare $375 million for a brand-new stadium plus the AFL training centre plus the hundreds of millions for the sewerage system. Do you catch my drift?

The Tasmanian education minister said that anything less than 100 per cent funding for Tasmania's public schools is unacceptable. But, when the state government has signed up to fund the lion's share of public education, how is it that the fault suddenly lies with the federal government? Let's not forget that every single state and territory except for Tasmania has a Labor government at the helm. So it's Labor state governments calling out federal Labor and not sticking to an agreement signed under a federal Labor government. But here's the kicker: of the money each state and territory spends on SRS funding, a percentage of it goes to non-school spending. It's claimed for capital depreciation and administrative costs. In Tasmania, this non-school spending is about four per cent of their SRS funding, so that's money that the state government says it's spending on education but that isn't being spent directly in schools.

While states continue to demand more from the federal government, this money could be going directly to schools right now and helping the kids who need it the most. I have family and friends working in public schools in Tasmania. They've told me how they're buying stationery for their classrooms out of their own pocket because there's no budget for it. Someone told me a kindergarten in Devonport is in desperate need of money to upgrade its playground. It's at the point where it's becoming dangerous for the kids to play on it—it's that bad. I don't think a single person here would say this is okay. Nobody wants our public schools to be underresourced and underfunded. Public schools are safe places for kids who don't come from a lot. My kids went to the same primary school and high school that I did. That was the same high school my mum went to. There's something special in that—that they can learn and dream in the same place that I did and even learn from some of the same teachers I did.

Kids at public schools should receive the same standard of education as kids at private schools. They deserve to have every single opportunity available to them. They shouldn't be denied that. Kids shouldn't be denied essential resources because state and federal governments are having a spat about who has to pay. For me, there's no arguing that public schools should get all the funding they deserve. I don't think it's too much to ask that the state governments chip in what they agreed to, and they should chip in that full amount without nonsense excuses about why some of the money isn't actually spent directly on schools at all. Aussie kids deserve more than to be a football kicked around the play yard at recess. They're assets for the future, and we should treat them with the respect that an asset deserves.